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Eel Pie

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Eel Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

  1. Clean, trim, and fillet the fish.

  2. Season the fillets with pepper, coarse sea salt, cayenne, mace, and minced parsley.

  3. Roll or lay the fillets flat, packing them neatly.

  4. Place small pieces of butter between each layer of fish.

  5. For a rich pie, add shrimp, lobster, oysters, eggs, mushrooms, and truffles between layers.

  6. Spread forcemeat in the pie dish to fill gaps.

  7. Pour bechamel or anchovy sauce over the fish layers.

  8. Cover with puff pastry and bake at 350°F (175°C) until cooked, less time than a meat pie of the same size.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Fish + oystertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together496 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Shrimp + lobstertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together403 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Shrimp + oystertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together531 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Butter + shrimptop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,931 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, pepper, parsley, butter, shrimp, lobster, oyster):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pepper, parsley, butter, shrimp, lobster, oyster. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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